Norwegian Course Outline

The Cactus Course Outlines provide a learning framework for the Cactus Foreign Language Evening Courses. They are designed to provide you with a good idea of what you might cover over a 10-week period, and include typical themes, grammar and vocabulary fields. They are flexible rather than prescriptive, in that our teachers may decide to adapt their learning plans to the specific level, aims and interests of their classes. Use the tabs below to view the relevant Norwegian course outline for your level. If you want to cover the same course outline in a shorter period of time, we also offer One-Week Online Courses and 5-week Courses.

Beginner 1

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Introducing yourself and others
  • Greetings and goodbyes
  • Asking basic questions
  • The Norwegian alphabet
  • Numbers
  • Asking for and giving information about yourself
  • Buying food and objects
  • Talking about the outdoors and the weather
  • Talking about countries and nationalities
  • Conversational phrases
Grammar
  • Modal and present tense verbs
  • Personal pronouns
  • Indefinite and definite form of nouns
  • Indefinite form of plural nouns
  • Adverbs for location and motion
  • Word order
  • Question words
  • Negation
  • Infinitive form of verbs
Cultural Content
  • Formal and informal greetings
  • Norwegian money
  • The outdoors
  • Two main writing systems and dialects
Skills Work
  • Pronunciation for example long and short vowels
  • Speaking activities such as giving basic information about yourself and going shopping
  • Writing practice such as emails and postcards
  • Listening exercises

Beginner 2

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Talking about food and mealtimes
  • Ordering drinks
  • Buying furniture
  • Making a request
  • Making a phone call
  • Talking about everyday life and routines
  • Describing people and places
  • Telling time and days of the week
  • Talking about family members
  • Talking about how you live
Grammar
  • Imperative form of verbs
  • Basic adjective forms
  • Personal pronouns: object form
  • Time expressions and time prepositions
  • Adverbs for location
  • Modal adverbs
  • Possessives and reflexive possessives
  • Sentence structure
  • Ordinal numbers
Cultural Content
  • Norwegian food traditions
  • Children and families in Norway
  • Punctuality
  • Housing in Norway
Skills Work
  • Speaking activities such as daily conversations between family members and making phone calls
  • Pronunciation
  • Listening exercises
  • Writing practice such as writing about one’s family

Beginner 3

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Talking about past events
  • Expressing wonder and interest
  • Ordering food at a restaurant
  • Ordering street food
  • Scheduling a meet up
  • Giving instructions
  • Describing people and places
  • Talking about places you have visited
Grammar
  • Past tense of verbs
  • Regular and irregular verbs
  • Past and present perfect
  • Compound words
  • Time expressions
  • S-verbs
  • Imperative form of verbs
  • Prepositions
  • Relative pronoun “som”
Cultural Content
  • Table manners
  • Norwegian food culture
Skills Work
  • Speaking activities such as keeping in touch with friends and colleagues
  • Pronunciation
  • Listening exercises
  • Writing practice for example emails, instant messaging and writing a letter

Elementary 1

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Expressing opinions and beliefs
  • Asking for and giving information
  • Making suggestions and giving advice
  • Discussing events and celebrations
  • Talking about religious holidays
  • Talking about past experiences
  • Comparing
  • Making phone calls and arranging meetings
Grammar
  • Indefinite and definite forms of adjectives
  • Adjectives: comparative and superlative
  • Passive voice form of verbs
  • Demonstratives
Cultural Content
  • Norwegian Traditions
  • Norwegian Culture
  • Norwegian people
Skills Work
  • Speaking activities such as discussions and dialogues
  • Pronunciation
  • Listening activities
  • Writing activities for example letters and emails

Elementary 2

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Asking and listening for specific information
  • Presenting thoughts and opinions
  • Stating points of view in a discussion
  • Informal and formal conversations
  • Motivating choices
  • Encouraging and persuading
  • Talking about the body and how to keep fit
  • Talking about getting ill and having an accident
  • Express how things appear
  • Talking about future plans and holidays
  • Talking about work and professional background
Grammar
  • Verb and noun form: review
  • Reflexive verbs and reflexive pronouns
  • Imperative form of verbs
  • Adjective/question word “which”
  • Sequence of events
Cultural content
  • Healthcare in Norway
  • Norway: Country and Climate
  • Norwegian Holidays
  • Norwegian transport
  • Norwegian mountain safety
  • Health and safety in Norway
Skills Work
  • Speaking activities such as discussions and dialogues
  • Pronunciation
  • Listening activities
  • Writing activities for example recounts and about past events

Elementary 3

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Giving reasons and explaining opinions
  • Asking for clarification and information
  • Express beliefs and opinions
  • Describing experiences and feelings
  • Talking about hopes and ambitions
  • Talking about nature
  • Asking for and giving directions
Grammar
  • Prepositions for directions
  • Passive voice form of verbs
  • Genitive s
Cultural Content
  • Working life in Norway
  • Labour rights
  • Geographical and regional divisions of Norway
  • Live and work in Norway
Skills Work
  • Speaking activities such as discussions and dialogues
  • Pronunciation
  • Listening activities
  • Writing activities for example informative texts and posts on forums

Intermediate 1

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Express opinions
  • Describe people and places
  • Comparing
  • Arrange plans
  • Expressing likes and dislikes
  • Describe childhood and upbringing
  • Talking about the past
  • Talking about landscape and climate
Grammar
  • Plural form of nouns
  • Conjunctions
  • Possessive pronouns
  • Superlative and comparatives
  • Compound words
  • Quantifiers
Cultural Content
  • Norwegian geographical characteristics
  • Norwegian dialects and their qualities
  • Norwegian climate and wildlife
Skills Work
  • Speaking activities such as dialogue and informal conversation
  • Listening exercises
  • Pronunciation
  • Written activities such as articles, descriptions, dialogue and email.

Intermediate 2

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Describing historical events
  • Talking about interests and hobbies
  • Explaining and clarifying
  • Describing differences
Grammar
  • Compound words
  • Present perfect and past perfect tenses
Cultural Content
  • The Vikings and their travels
  • The Viking belief system
  • Historical views on men and women
Skills Work
  • Speaking activities such as dialogue and informal conversation
  • Listening exercises
  • Pronunciation
  • Written activities such as storytelling, sequencing events, article and informative texts

Intermediate 3

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Describing historical aspects of a place
  • Talking about countries and its people
  • Explain and give reason for actions
  • Discuss significance of events and experiences
  • Explain a point of view on topical issues
  • Expressing advantages and disadvantages of options
Grammar
  • Preteritum futurum
  • Preteritum futurum perfectum
  • Conditional tense
Cultural Content
  • Norway: a historical view
  • Norwegian nationalism
  • Life in Norway 200 years ago
Skills Work
  • Speaking activities such as dialogue and informal conversation
  • Listening exercises
  • Pronunciation
  • Written activities such as letter, informative texts and argumentative texts

Upper Intermediate Lower

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Norway during WW2
  • Talking about historical events
  • Norwegian culture
  • Quality of life in Norway
  • Law and Order
  • In the news
  • Challenges
  • Moving to a new country
  • Explaining and giving reasons
Grammar
  • Review of past grammar
  • Modal and time adverbs
  • Discourse markers
  • Pass on information in a clear and detailed way in wiring and speech
  • Recognize and create questions within clauses
  • Understand and use the following words: felles vs. samme gjerne-heller-helst vs. heller, ingen vs. ingenting, enkel vs. enkelt..
  • Understand  and use personal descriptions (personbetegnelser) i.e.. using adjectives as nouns, and groups that do not use articles
  • Understand and use Det
Cultural Content
  • Resistance during WW2 in Norway
  • Norwegian culture
  • Norway in the news
  • Moving to Norway
  • Modern Norway
Skills Work
  • Speaking activities such as comparing views and ideas, talking about past experiences, stating and responding to points of view
  • Pronunciation
  • Writing practice such as emails and letters
  • Listening exercises

Upper Intermediate Higher

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Primarily topics of students’ choice
  • Expressing expectations, doubts, and hopes
  • Talking about social, religious and political issues
  • Talking about changes in your life
  • Giving instructions
  • Analyzing and evaluating newspapers articles
  • Relating an extraordinary event
  • Cultural differences in perception and expression
  • Discussing topical news of the day
Grammar
  • Review of past grammar
  • Identify s-verbs vs. passive verbs that end in -s
  • Passive verbs using bli, -s, være, and det as the subject
  • The presens (present tense) and bli+presens partisipp (bli + present participle)
  • The perfektum partisipp (past participle)
  • partikkelverb (particle verb)
  • Identify and use få as a helping verb
  • Read a text in nynorsk and compare it to bokmål
Cultural Content
  • The political system in Norway
  • Newspaper articles and film – extracts
  • Personal experiences
  • Norwegian fairytales and literature
Skills Work
  • Focus on speaking
  • C.V. writing
  • Writing practice – e.g. short stories, reviews and comments, advertisements
  • Plenty of listening activities – authentic sources, e.g. Radio, TV, films, podcasts
  • Analyzing and evaluating newspapers articles
  • Summarizing interviews, biographies
  • Carrying out an interview

Advanced

Functional Language
  • Developing an argument and defending a point of view
  • Challenging arguments and opinions
  • Expressing beliefs and expressing opinions tentatively
  • Summarising information, ideas and arguments
  • Deducing and inferring
  • Justifying an argument
  • Expressing caution and expressing reservation
  • Expressing empathy and sympathy
  • Evaluating different standpoints
Lexis
  • Vocabulary specific to the topic and subject areas
  • Phrases and expressions relating to the language functions listed above
Topics and Culture
  • International events, current political and economic issues
  • The internet, global communication, social media
  • Diversity, equal opportunity, social injustice, human rights
  • The future of the planet, climate change, global warming
  • Well-being, mental health, stress management
Grammar
  • Phrasal verbs
  • Prepositional phrases
  • Abbreviations
  • Word families and etymology
  • Reported speech
  • Present Participle
  • Relative pronoun
  • Sayings, idioms and set phrases
  • Revision of advanced grammar
Pronunciation
  • The clear pronunciation of topic and subject-area specific vocabulary
  • Sounds with minimal interference from the first language
  • Various features of pronunciation which only occasionally deviate from an internationally intelligible model
  • A range of stress and intonation patterns, pitch and volume to convey subtle shifts in meaning and attitude

Proficient

Functional Language
  • All of the functions at Advanced level
  • Asserting
  • Denying
  • Softening and downplaying propositions
  • Contradicting
  • Implying
  • Affirming
Lexis
  • A good command of a very broad lexical repertoire
  • A wide range of idiomatic expressions and colloquialisms
  • Phrases and expressions relating to the language functions listed above
Topics and Culture
  • Global economy and the influence of global politics
  • The global rise of the far right in the 21st century
  • Internet fraud, scamming, money laundering
  • The impact of Covid on the workplace and across industry
  • Love, marriage and sexuality in the 21st Century
Grammar
  • Revision of advanced grammar
Pronunciation
  • Produce individual sounds so as to be fully understood, with only a rare sound that deviates from an internationally intelligible model
  • Stress and intonation patterns which are recognisably specific to the language without any lapses in intelligibility

Understanding Language Levels

If you are taking a language course with Cactus you can find out more about our language levels and how you can track your progress using the ‘can do statements’ below. These statements outline the key things that you should be able to say and understand once you have completed each level. Can do statements are officially recognised as a set of performance-related scales describing what a learner is able to do in a foreign language, in accordance with the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) and the CEFR defined levels.

CEFR Levels

If you are taking a language course with Cactus you can find out more about our language levels and how you can track your progress using the ‘can do statements’. These statements outline the key things that you should be able to say and understand once you have completed each level. Can do statements are officially recognised as a set of performance-related scales describing what a learner is able to do in a foreign language, in accordance with the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) and the CEFR defined levels.

Beginner (A1)

  • You can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type
  • You can introduce yourself and others
  • You can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where you live, what you do, people you know and things you have
  • You can ask and give directions
  • You can order food and drink
  • You can make very basic travel and accommodation arrangements
  • You can have a basic conversation, provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.

Elementary (A2)

  • You can understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas including basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography and employment
  • You can communicate in simple and routine tasks, requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters
  • You can describe, in simple terms, aspects of your background, immediate environment and matters in areas of immediate need
  • You can comfortably ‘get by’ when visiting the country, albeit with some difficulty.

Intermediate (B1)

  • You can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc.
  • You can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken
  • You can produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest
  • You can describe experiences and events
  • You can talk about dreams, hopes and ambitions
  • You can briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans
  • You could consider working in the country using the language (e.g. bar/counter work, waiting service in cafes or basic office work).

Upper Intermediate (B2)

  • You can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in your field of specialisation.
  • You can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible, without strain for either party.
  • You can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue, giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.
  • You can do business with speakers of the language in most run-of-the-mill situations.

Advanced (C1)

  • You can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning
  • You can express yourself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions
  • You can use the language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes
  • You can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organisational patterns, logical flow of text, and clear awareness of the audience.

Proficient (C2)

  • You can understand with ease virtually everything heard or read
  • You can summarise information from different spoken and written sources
  • You can reconstruct arguments and accounts in a coherent presentation
  • You can express yourself spontaneously, very fluently and precisely
  • You can differentiate finer shades of meaning, even in the most complex situations.

How to book with Cactus

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